When I read this piece on CNN I can’t honestly say I was surprised. It’s human nature. If you bully and push anyone too hard, and threaten them long enough, they are going to retreat and go into hiding. And that’s exactly what’s been happening in Russia with gay people, even some of the most prominent who have been openly out for a while.

A very openly gay bisexual from the Ukraine, Pavel Petel, was once candid about what he did and about who he was, until he and his partner were attacked near Moscow. Here are a few of his comments:

“People in the regions are very aggressive towards gays. Sergey and I were lucky to be alive last year because some people wanted to kill us. My fear has been growing since then.”

And recently, “I was working on my video when I turned on the TV and saw video of one anchor of a Russian channel who said that you need to burn the gays’ hearts,” he told CNN. “I had to continue to smile, perform, say ‘hello sexy’ but it was difficult. I started to be afraid.”

I still stand by my own prediction that all will be calm for the sake of appearances during the Olympic games, but when they are over this is only going to get worse for gay people in Russia and more like Petel will go into hiding unless the rest of the world does something to stop it. And by not boycotting the 2014 Olympics the entire world is doing a huge disservice to the global LGBTI community. Because when I hear open comments about burning gays it’s getting too close to what happened in Nazi Germany during WWII. History always tends to repeat itself.

Chris Christie Slams Trans People

As if New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t have enough bad things happening with the GW traffic jam deal and all the problems within his administration, he vetoed a bill that would have given trans people the opportunity to change the gender on their birth certificates in order to identify with the gender they are now. In other words, if you were classified as a male at birth and you became a trans woman without having surgery, you could go back and change it to female on your birth certificate. Those who have had surgery can make the change, but those who haven’t can’t.

‘It was very vindictive,’ Garden State Equality Executive Director Troy Stevenson tells Gay Star News. ‘It had not been a controversial piece of legislation. Just because it had the word transgender in it, he didn’t want to sign it.’ Stevenson points out that only about 30% of transgender people actually go through a full surgery.

I’ve known a few trans people in my time and none that I’ve known had the surgical procedure done, not one. Yet they all lived their lives as male to female and no one I knew every thought twice about it. I would imagine the ability to change the gender classification would come in handy when dealing with any official papers or related material. Unfortunately, thanks to Christie they can’t.

The whole point behind the new trans gender movement, for lack of a better way to phrase this, is more about how trans people mentally identify with gender and not about their actual physical body parts. Christie has always come off as a nasty, belligerent man, and if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, guess what?

The bill passed the Senate in late December by a vote of 21-11. The Assembly had approved the bill last June by a vote of 43-27.

My side note here is one thing: if this is the best the Republican party can come up with in the next general Presidential election we’re all in big trouble. Because this is taking away our choices as voters. And we all wind up voting by the sheer process of elimination instead of passion for the people running for office.

I’m on the Beekman 1802 mailing list and I received their latest news this evening: they were married, had a wedding at Beekman, and they shared photos so everyone could see how they decided to do this.

From my inbox:

Well, we’ve finally gathered photos from our wedding to share with you…and we have a special video of us getting our wedding license to share. Trust us…you’re gonna be sick of of wedding news after the next month or so. Yep…we’re just like any other newly married couple: we’re gonna overshare our special day. So settle in. This newsletter is just the tip of the wedding iceberg. (We’ll put in some recipes and giveaways before the wedding video and photos, just to ease you in. )I think a lot of LGBT couples in legal states are doing things differently after the SCOTUS ruling. Tony and I have no immediate plans yet because same sex marriage is not legal where we live…and we’re only forty-five minutes to NYC, which seems so ridiculous. I posted last week about how one town in PA started issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples and the Republican Governor of PA, Tom Corbett, has already begun to challenge this as an illegal act. What is even more ironic is that Tom Corbett’s daughter and son-in-law would not have been allowed to marry years ago in some US states because they happen to be an interracial couple.

In fact, Tom Corbett is now heading a state where LGBT marriage is not legal, in spite of the fact that his own daughter and son-in-law would have suffered the same inequality in certain US states prior to 1967 when the SCOTUS ruled this unconstitutional. As of right now, Gov. Tom Corbett has not mentioned one single plan to legalize same sex marriage so that he, too, can be on the right side of history and that LGBT couples can have the same dignity as his daughter and son-in-law. So I guess we know how his legacy will go down.

Interracial marriage in the United States has been fully legal in all U.S. states since the 1967 Supreme Court decision that deemed anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, with many states choosing to legalize interracial marriage at much earlier dates.

I was out of the office today visiting family in NJ, where civil unions are legal, but marriage is not…the Governor there, Chris Christie, keeps vetoing the bill that would pass it. He’s the guy with the big mouth who likes to embarrass people in public and try to look cool. From what I’ve heard, no one is NJ is too thrilled with anything he’s doing. He’s up for reelection soon. And if the tide of opinion is turning like it’s been in every statistic I’ve read, this one issue alone could bury him. I ran into an old friend who is a lesbian and she’s moving to Delaware with her partner where she can be equal and she’s not going to be discriminated against. I know many others, and their families and friends, who plan to campaign actively against Christie in the next election just on this one issue alone. I don’t think the Republican party fully understands how they are going to look in 100 years.

However, it’s nice to see some things moving forward, and to see that some LGBT couples are enjoying equality. Here’s a link to the Beekman website where you can view all the photos. And there are a few more interesting things to check out as well.

The other night I watched a film titled, “Union Square,” and actor Mike Doyle was part of the cast. I knew nothing about him, but I thought he looked a little like Matt Bomer so I looked him up later that night with just a basic simple search.

First, I saw that he’s known mostly for TV shows I’d probably never watch, and second, to my surprise, I saw that he’s also done male full frontal nudity on stage. And since I’ve posted about that before, and how there always seems to be a double standard with regard to male full frontal nudity and female full frontal, I figured I’d post about Mike Doyle’s full frontal nude scene. (He allegedly did this in a play at Lincoln Center.)

Unfortunately, the only links I can offer in this post about Mike Doyle’s full frontal nude scenes through a simple search are blanks.

This blogger who I’m linking to now was asked to remove the alleged full frontal nude photos of Doyle by Lincoln Center. They threatened him with legal action if he didn’t remove them. He’s updated his post a few times to explain things, and it seems more sites have removed the full frontal content of Mike Doyle. And we all know that no small blogger is going to go up against Lincoln Center’s legal team. I wouldn’t do it.

There are several links here, at Justusboys.com, in the comment thread, but all of those come up with “Sorry, the file you have requested is not available.” I guess Lincoln Center went all out, because there don’t seem to be any photos or videos of Mike Doyle’s full frontal nude scene anywhere on the web, at least not with a simple search. And frankly, I don’t have the time or inclination to dig deeper on this one.

I’m not sure if this is a copyright issue or a privacy issue. I’m really on the fence about this one. I’ve posted about how I thought it was a disgrace that both Princess Kate and Prince William had their privacy invaded when the press snapped nude photos of them against their wishes, ignoring all good taste and definitely invading their privacy in the worst way. And even though there was a double standard in that case as well, I don’t think either of them should have been subjected to that kind of invasion of privacy because neither of them were looking for that kind of attention.

However, this Mike Doyle case isn’t quite the same. Look at it this way, if I decide to pull down my pants in public, show what I have to the world in a play, and I get paid for it at the same time and someone snaps a photo and it goes live on the Internet, is that an invasion of my privacy? I don’t have the answer to that. But it can get complicated and bloggers have to be cautious about this.

As a side note, I cannot in good faith recommend the film “Union Square.” I watched it on DVR, but I found it long and tedious and I wound up fast forwarding more than a few scenes. The character Mike Doyle plays is basically bland and lifeless…a happy-go-lucky veggie eating guy who thinks he’s cornered the market on lifestyle and health in that annoying pushy way. They don’t eat turkey for Thanksgiving; they eat veggies shaped like cute little animals…or something. And I thought the main plot lacked the emotion they were obviously shooting for. In other words, when you try to get too deep and too artistic sometimes it winds up looking like a high school production. At one point, where there was a scene with Mira Sorvino standing on the edge of a bridge, I wanted to shout, “Jump already.”

Gov. Chris Christie Tells Off Big Mouth Doctor On CNN

I’m not all that political, but I am from New Jersey and I now live only a mile away from New Jersey in Pennsylvania. The day I had to turn in my New Jersey driver’s license at the Pennsylvania DMV was one of the hardest days of my life. And in spite of how much I like where I live in New Hope, I still consider myself a New Jersey resident and will never really think of Pennsylvania as “home.” I’m not even sure I could tell you who the governor of PA is, but I could tell you it’s Chris Christie in NJ.

You can’t live this close to New Jersey and not hear something new about outspoken governor, Chris Christie, almost daily. I find his honest approach refreshing, because he says and does a lot of the things I’ve always wanted to see a politician say and do. In other words, he doesn’t take any shit from anyone. He doesn’t placate and pretend to be someone he isn’t. And what I’m linking to below is classic Chris Christie at his best.

It seems there was this doctor giving an interview on CNN, a TV station I stopped watching a long time ago because of this kind of WTF-ery. Also a TV station struggling to survive right now.

Connie Mariano, a doctor in the White House medical unit from 1992 to 2001, said in an interview on CNN that Christie, a blunt-spoken Republican who is seen as a strong contender if he decides to run for president in 2016, risks a heart attack or a stroke if he does not slim down.

“It’s almost like a time bomb waiting to happen unless he addresses those issues before running for office,” Mariano said.

Now, I don’t know if doc Connie is dumb or arrogant, or both. But that’s exactly what she said.

And this is what Chris Christie said in response:

“I find it fascinating that a doctor in Arizona who has never met me, never examined me, never reviewed my medical history or records, knows nothing about my family history, could make a diagnosis from 2,400 miles away. She must be a genius,” Christie said, adding: “My children saw that.”

He called Mariano “just another hack who wants five minutes on TV.”

I watched a clip about this on the local news last night and Christie goes on to say that he actually had to explain to his kids that he’s okay, thanks to that idiot doctor. That’s bad enough in itself, and I think doc Connie should offer a public apology and shut her big mouth from now on. That is unless she’s found a cure for people who get run over by buses, or any of the other things that take lives on a daily basis so unexpectedly. But even more, what she did is a subtle form of bullying, and no one should be subjected to that. Because in the end, it’s no one’s damn business what anyone else weighs, eats, drinks, smokes, or does. And that’s a privacy issue I do understand.

I happen to be very conscious about what I eat because I don’t want to gain weight. In fact, I’m fanatical sometimes and it’s not always easy. And I’ve learned that maintaining a certain weight is more about portion control than what you eat. But I’m also no veggie-tofu pushing extremest, and I consider a big juicy piece of prime rib more than just a meal. It’s an event. And I dare anyone to tell me I shouldn’t be eating it.

Author of over 100 published LGBT romance novels and stories, including AN OFFICER AND HIS GENTLEMAN and best selling VIRGIN BILLIONAIRE SERIES. Hates beets.
New Hope, PA Palm Springs, CA
ryan-field.blogspot.com